Science & STEM

Epidemiology Quiz: Practice Rates, Risks, and Outbreaks

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This epidemiology quiz helps you practice incidence, risk factors, attack rates, and outbreak investigation through short case questions with instant feedback. Build skills with an epi practice test, explore the infectious diseases quiz, or sharpen stats with a biostatistics quiz. Use it to spot gaps before a class, exam, or field exercise.

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1Which measure refers to the proportion of a population that has a disease at a specific point in time?
2How is cumulative incidence best defined?
3Which measure uses person-time in the denominator to account for varying follow-up times?
4In which study design are participants classified based on exposure status and followed over time to assess disease occurrence?
5Which study design selects participants based on disease status and looks back to assess exposures?
6Which design assesses exposure and disease status at a single point in time?
7What term describes any attribute, characteristic, or exposure that increases the likelihood of developing a disease?
8Which term describes a disease prevalence that is constant in a population over time?
9When a disease occurs at a higher-than-expected rate in a population, it is called a/an:
10Which term is used when an epidemic spreads across multiple countries or continents?
11What is an outbreak?
12Which surveillance system relies on regular, systematic collection of case reports from healthcare providers?
13Which surveillance method involves actively seeking out cases through contacting providers and laboratories?
14What is the attributable risk?
15How is the population attributable risk percent interpreted?
16Under what condition does the odds ratio approximate the relative risk?
17What best describes a confounding variable?
18Which bias occurs when participants self-select into a study based on exposure or outcome?
19Which bias is introduced by systematic differences in data collection methods between groups?
20What is sensitivity of a diagnostic test?
21What is specificity of a diagnostic test?
22Which is the positive predictive value (PPV)?
23What does a 95% confidence interval represent?
24What is effect modification?
25Which level of evidence is highest for determining causality?
26What is the ecological fallacy?
27Which method estimates survival fun<wbr>ctions and accounts for censored data?
28What does a hazard ratio of 2.0 indicate in a survival analysis?
29In meta-analysis, what does high I-squared (I[@U00B2]) indicate?
30Which model assumes a single true effect size shared by all studies?
31Which regression technique assesses time to event data while adjusting for covariates?
32What does the basic reproduction number (R0) represent?
33Which curve plots sensitivity versus 1-specificity for different test thresholds?
34What is the secondary attack rate?
35What statistical method can adjust for multiple confounders when estimating incidence rate ratios?
36What is the purpose of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) in epidemiology?
37Which approach uses genetic variants as instrumental variables to infer causal effects?
38What is multilevel modeling used for in epidemiologic research?
39In outbreak investigations, what is the case definition?
Learning Goals

Study Outcomes

  1. Understand Core Epidemiology Concepts -

    Master definitions of incidence, prevalence, risk factors, and outbreak investigations as presented in our epidemiology questions quiz.

  2. Calculate Incidence, Prevalence, and Risk Metrics -

    Accurately compute and interpret measures like incidence rates, relative risk, and odds ratios based on real-world quiz data.

  3. Interpret Outbreak Investigation Findings -

    Analyze scenario-based questions to identify disease sources, transmission patterns, and effective control measures.

  4. Analyze Risk Factors Using Quiz Scenarios -

    Examine associations between exposures and outcomes to assess causality and potential confounders.

  5. Evaluate Epidemiologic Study Designs -

    Compare cohort, case - control, and cross-sectional designs to understand their strengths and limitations in public health research.

  6. Apply Evidence-Based Public Health Strategies -

    Develop targeted intervention proposals and preventive measures informed by instant feedback from the epidemiology practice quiz.

Study Guide

Cheat Sheet

  1. Incidence vs. Prevalence -

    According to CDC definitions, incidence measures new cases per population-time (IR = new cases/person-time), while prevalence captures all existing cases at a specific point (cases/population). Remember the mnemonic "PIN": Prevalence Is a Number snapshot, Incidence Needs time. Mastering this distinction is key for epidemiology questions on both incidence rates and disease burden in any epidemiology trivia questions set.

  2. Risk Ratio (RR) and Odds Ratio (OR) -

    Per standard epidemiology texts, the Risk Ratio (RR = incidence_exposed/incidence_unexposed) quantifies relative risk in cohort studies, while the Odds Ratio (OR = (a/c)/(b/d)) is central to case-control designs. A quick tip: if OR≈RR when disease is rare (prevalence <10%), you can approximate one from the other. Knowing these formulas inside-out will boost your confidence in any epidemiology practice quiz or public health quiz scenario.

  3. Key Epidemiological Study Designs -

    Referencing guidelines from WHO and leading universities, understand the four pillars: descriptive (who, what, when, where), analytic (cohort, case-control), experimental (randomized trials), and ecological studies. Use the "DEAR" mnemonic (Descriptive, Ecologic, Analytic, Randomized) to recall study types. Solid grasp of design strengths and limitations is often tested in an epidemiology quiz and sharpens your real-world outbreak analysis.

  4. Outbreak Investigation Steps -

    Follow the standard seven steps defined by CDC: prepare, verify, define cases, describe data, hypothesize, test hypothesis, implement control. The phrase "People Vexed Delay Defining Hard Theories" can help you remember "Prepare, Verify, Define, Describe, Hypothesize, Test, Implement." This structured approach is a staple of outbreak scenario questions in epidemiology trivia questions.

  5. Interpreting an Epidemic Curve -

    Per WHO outbreak guidelines, plot cases over time to distinguish point-source, continuous common-source, and propagated outbreaks based on curve shape. For example, a sharp peak suggests point-source, while multiple peaks indicate person-to-person spread. Mastering curve patterns is essential for quickly answering epidemiology quiz visuals and outbreak timeline questions.

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Michael HodgeEdTech Product Lead & Assessment Design SpecialistQuiz Maker
Updated Feb 21, 2026